


Only the Invited

by FireEye



Category: Zero | Project Zero | Fatal Frame Series, 零 濡鴉ノ巫女 | Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Role Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 11:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12886698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: A modern day Kunihiko and Ose race to solve the curse of Hikami before it's... TOO LATE.





	Only the Invited

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elwing_alcyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwing_alcyone/gifts).



Late afternoon sunlight stretched across the table, its warmth ominously absent.

Ose had long since leaned into his shoulder, watching his brushstrokes with empty eyes.  Asou works diligently, working off the select few photos that had developed with a clear enough likeness for him to work with.

As he stares at the long-dead women he has painted, he rouses himself from a curious daze, and he realizes his hands have stopped.  It’s finished.

“Ose.”

When he nudges her, she looks at him askance, beneath a heavy gaze.  She blinks again, and sits up straighter; her apologetic smile fades as her attention falls on the tablet in his hands.  She stares, as Asou gets up to collect his things, but before she can touch it, he slips the painting into his camera bag.

The camera itself, he picks up almost reverently, and slips over his shoulder by its strap.  For all the secrets it houses, it resembles nothing out of the ordinary.

Shyly, Ose held out her hand.  Asou reached for it, anchoring her to pull herself to her feet.

The paints and brushes are left behind on the table, forgotten.

***

Asou doesn’t let go.

They chase the setting sun up the mountain, and Hikami welcomes them deeper.  The trees whisper in the still air as they pass, and the mist rolls up the forgotten paths on their heels.

As they reach the Forbidden Valley, the mist falls over them like a shroud as they struggle through the stagnant water to the far shore.

It is here that their resolve is tested, for it is here, on the path overgrown with Higanbana, in the dying glow of the sun, that they must part.  Her hand slips from his, and he reaches into his bag.

Without a word, Asou offers her the votive portrait, along with Hisoka’s charm.  Ose doesn’t want to take them, and when her fingers brush against his skin, he pulls his hands away.

“Kunihiko.”

Offering her the camera, Asou looks away.  It’s only after she takes it and has already disappeared into the darkness that he dares raise his head.  And yet he can’t keep himself from searching the darkness for any sign of her passing.

He knows he can’t follow.

He wasn’t invited.

He’s done all he can do.

He prays that his camera will protect her in his stead.

Falling to his knees in the dirt, he waits.

_A curse that fell upon Hikami, when two shrine maidens pledged themselves to one another.  But as Hisoka Kurosawa was being placed in her casket, the death of her fellow shrine maidens, the flow of their emotions, their pain, and all those they had glanced..._

_...and the death of Yuri Mikomori, most of all, who had pledged to join Hisoka in her casket, when her time had come.  Hisoka’s pain and grief overflowed._

_The Shadowspring claimed the mountain and all souls who set foot upon it._

Alone on the darkened path, Asou hopes that Ose has the strength to bring them peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't quite get the tone of it when I was trying to write in the time of the Shrine Maidens, but I kinda liked this when I was finished with it. It's a little cheesy, and I wish I could have elaborated more on the whole backstory somehow, but I did like the thought of Dr. Asou modifying an older 1980s film-based camera to hunt ghosts.
> 
> I still hope you enjoyed it. :)


End file.
